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Expert insight
Expert insight

Step Nine: Educate children about personal safety
No child abuse prevention plan is complete without a plan to reach out to the youth of the church with ...
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Step Ten: Review and maintain your child protection program
A program is only effective when it is followed and evaluated. Once you have child abuse response and prevention protocols ...
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Step Eight: Create guidelines for responding to abuse
Learning that a child has been abused while in the church’s care is a stressful situation, making good decisions more ...
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Step Seven: Support abuse survivors
More than one out of four people have experienced or are currently experiencing abuse, yet over half of all Protestant ...
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Step Six: Train adults to recognize and respond to abuse
Training the adults in the church is a vital step to keeping children safe. At a minimum every person who ...
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Step Five: Implement Guidelines for Youth Leaders
Boundaries are important and keep people safe. The fence around a power plant is meant to keep people a safe ...
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Sample Standards for Interactions with Minors and/or Vulnerable Adults
(Taken from virtusonline.org) Examples of appropriate contact with minors for Church programs include, but are not limited to: Verbal praise ...
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Step Four: Assess Your Space
Children need a safe environment in which they can learn God’s Word. Careful facility design is an important step to ...
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Sample Site Assessment Checklist
This checklist is not exhaustive. It is meant to be a starting point and should be adapted to meet the ...
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Children with Problematic Sexual Behaviors
It is important to recognize the differences when dealing with sexual behavior of young people: “Recognizing and Responding to Developmentally ...
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Talking Jesus With A Survivor
Child abuse does not only affect a child’s body and emotional health. It touches their spiritual health, too. A child ...
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Working with Law Enforcement: The Investigation and Your Child
At some level we all realize that investigations in real life take longer than they do on television. Yet, parents ...
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Working With Law Enforcement: Getting Started
Some abuse is only discovered when a child talks to his or her parent about what happened. Hearing this in ...
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Misbeliefs: I’m All Alone
Many survivors of childhood abuse report feelings of being alone in the world, that no one can understand them. These ...
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Misbeliefs: It’s My Fault
Survivors of trauma, whether childhood abuse, sexual assault, or domestic abuse, share a belief that the abuse was their fault ...
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Coping with Flashbacks
People who have experienced trauma may experience flashbacks in their everyday lives. Flashbacks can be intense and bring back the ...
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What Is A Trigger?
Experiencing a sudden onset of the feelings and emotions that you felt during an abusive situation is a common experience ...
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What Do I Say To A Sexual Assault Survivor?
Choosing a counselor should not be difficult. Here are a few things to keep in mind when selecting yours ...
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Information to Know When Seeking Counseling
Choosing a counselor should not be difficult. Here are a few things to keep in mind when selecting yours ...
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Developing Effective Church Policies on Child Maltreatment
Used with permission, this article by Victor Vieth from Jacob’s Hope reviews the ten stages of developing an effective child ...
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Ministering to Adult Sex Offenders
Examining ten lessons from Henry Gerecke on how to minister to adult sex offenders ...
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What Would Walther Do?
Counselors and theologians failing to understand the dynamics of child sexual abuse cases often apply the concept of law and ...
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Pastoral Theology Brief: Matthew 18
A pastor is counseling a couple in his congregation. In the course of the session it’s revealed that the husband ...
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Definitions of Child Abuse and Neglect
There are numerous federal and state laws that define child abuse and neglect. In determining whether or not a specific ...
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Understanding and Preventing Child Sexual Abuse
Parents, grandparents and other caretakers often have many questions about speaking to their children about abuse and in otherwise keeping ...
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A Lutheran Approach
Using the writings of Martin Luther and C.F.W. Walther, this article outlines a Christian approach to ministering to victims and ...
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